Anticipation pounding in my chest. Butterfly nerves fluttering, as I walked in with this rare desire I’ve only read about in books or romantic comedies. You know, the pounding heart, hand shaking sort of desire. The sort of desire that comes forth outa some hidden place, that take one unawares.

And so I ventured down, again, to blue.eyed.mans. We played horseshoes in the shade, out of the afternoon Canada Day sun. We drank some beers. Laughed. Smiled. I met some new people, and watched the fireworks with him, and all was good.

And my hands shook as I reached for him; every time.

I pushed all this away, you know, almost a year and a half ago. I had shoved it so hard I didn’t even know where it had gone. I never did manage to push away all of it. But it was enough gone to sometimes forget about him.

Forget that he got scared and bolted.

But that was over a year ago.

This is now.

I brought Irish with me, as he has a mostly fenced yard, and she and I are a pair. And so, she and I together stumbled back through the quiet village streets to home in the wee hours of Saturday morn.

It was good. It was excruciating. It was a mistake. It was wonderful. It was scary; but only because I think I love him, and I believe it to be an unrequited love. And, I know it was a mistake to open up this Pandora’s box.

Go with your heart, they say. So I did.

Well, sure. Now, what if your heart has a bad compass? Or bad taste? Or it cries in a falsetto?

What if it seems to not know what the heck it’s doing?

What then?

Oh, and of course, there are things he said. Things about his future and that talk of futures is completely new. A future a year ago or more now to him was, all gone.

He was all about NOW. And in that NOW, he said he was scared. He was scared and couldn’t commit anything, to anyone. So he cried real man tears and he left.

Now he says he might want another baby, be a better Dad, and I said, not with me you ain’t.

He mentioned his daughters trying to get him and the Mom back together, and this time when he spoke of her he didn’t as emphatically denounce her; which is also new.

Was that tiny strand I saw in his eyes… forgiveness? He’s healing.

He also said he believes you only get one true love, and I told him he was so very wrong. Completely.

There is such a thing as love after love, as we well know, eh, Mom? We know.

He’s healing from the wounds that ex-wife of 25 years inflicted, and I still have no idea what she did to him; other than completely break his heart.

Part of me wants to go with my misguided heart, regardless of where it leads. I mean, we are all broken.

And part of me thinks I’m crazy to waste this desire. Better to save this incredibleness for the one who gives as good as he gets. Can you imagine? The sparks would make those fireworks Friday Night look like sparklers.

I’ve turned him away a few times over the last while. I’ve told him before that I had plans. I hadn’t seen him for months and months, and months. Nothing. In a small place like this, it is rather hard to completely disappear, but he managed for almost nine months.

Then one day there he is at my hedgerow, dripping wet in the rains of May, and again I turned him back the way he had come.

Then a few weeks later he shows up at my door in the middle of the day, half-naked, with this look in his eyes, I know well. Not biting. Shoo fly, I said.

So, Mom, it’s not like I let him have his way with me. I resisted. I ignored him. I ignored how I felt. Until I couldn’t; thus, the last two weeks I have seen him twice.

Not doing it. NOT. Done.

It would seem my heart has broken free from that prison I put it in so many years ago. Smashed down the paper-mache walls and burst forth.

Funny, I never saw that as me. I was emotionally unavailable, hence, how could I feel anything? And you attract what you are, what you exude.

So sitting here on the stoop this July morning, I see all this now. I’ve thought of little else, and over the last days, as I’ve composed this letter, I’ve sorted it.

God help me, but this new heart will not be wasted on such as him. He is but the locksmith.

Love,